Transportation for All

M'dina Bus

Transportation for All

Authors

yassine zakki

Reda Zaanouni

ZAKARIAE ABDELLAOUI

School

Al Akhawayn University

Professor

Mary Grace Neville

Global Goals

16. Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

Keep this story going! Share below!

Summary

According to Houcine Amri, the innovative business model makes this company offer a unique pricing strategy that has its impact on the society's well-being. Indeed, M'dina Bus offers transportation services at a low cost that is affordable which provides a sort of social input. The company has also some goals that can be divided into two main categories: financial goals and also social goals.
Financially, the company is capturing value using an advertising business model. Interested companies can choose to display their ads on buses or on bus shelters.
Socially, the company is proposing a unique selling proposition by providing transportation services to citizens of Casablanca at a very affordable price. The main goal of this initiative is to lower social inequalities and provide all citizens with transportation commodities.

Innovation

Thanks to our interaction with Mr. Amri, we could actually refine the main idea behind the innovation that the company proposes. In fact, the company did actually fill a market gap by proposing transportation services to Casablanca citizens at an affordable price helping the society to lower social inequalities. Mr. Amri also added, "The general public tends to think that the profitability of this project consists of capturing value from bus ticket sales; rather, the company actually profits mostly from advertisement, which allows us to focus more on lowering the prices of the tickets and please our customers." (Houcine A.)

Transportation for All

Inspiration

One of the main inspirations of M'dina Bus, according to Mr. Amri, was a French company that proposes the same services to its customers in the city of Paris. Managers of M'dina did analyze the business model of this company and tried to get inspired by gathering enough information and adapting it to the Moroccan context. In fact, the idea was to re-model this concept and adapt it to the Moroccan market by changing some parameters related to the customers’ reaction towards this innovative idea. The results were actually satisfying as the demand for their services is still growing nowadays and the company did acquire a very big portion of the market share. Citizens of Casablanca started to also consider the company as a top-of-mind alternative.

Overall impact

According to Mr. Amri, this question could also be answered after many years of observation and experience. The company does actually perform annual external assessments related to their brand perception in the market. The annual results of these assessments showed that M'dina Bus services did actually fill a tremendous gap within the market of Casablanca as these services used to be sometimes unaffordable for some citizens. Thanks to our interaction with Mr. Amri, we could come to the conclusion that M’dina Bus is a transportation service company that has an impact on the following elements: the society, the customer and itself. Concerning the customers, the company is actually aiming to provide citizens with a basic service with an affordable price. This would have a strong positive impact on the society in which the citizens are going to be satisfied in a way that the company is going to ensure a good environment taking into consideration such factors as economical stability. Furthermore, the company will benefit from this step as it will capture value and maintain reputation and image within the given market which leads to attract more clients in the future, and why not expand on a larger scale.

Business benefit

Thanks to its increasing notoriety within the Moroccan market, Mr. Amri thinks that M'dina bus is ready to expand its services abroad, especially to North African countries and to countries in the Middle East. The company is actually generating a capital of 409 million Dirhams which can be considered as important compared to its competitors. the company is mainly generating money from advertisement in addition to ticket sales. M'dina bus proposes to other companies to display their ads on both buses and bus shelters which can be considered as a great communication tool that could interest many potential companies.

Social and environmental benefit

The societal impact that M'dina bus has on the society is mainly related to the well-being of the citizens located in Casablanca. In fact, by providing these transportation services at a low price, the company gives the opportunity to a large number of Casablanca citizens to access it. M'dina's buses connect many areas of the city, which gives a wider range of alternatives for customers and therefore strives for facilitating citizens' lives. Concerning the environment, Mr. Amri did actually emphasize the impact of the COP 22 on M'dina Bus's corporate social responsibility strategies as they are aiming now to lower their CO2 emissions.

Interview

Houcine Amri, Information System Director

Business information

M'dina Bus

Casablanca, Grand Casablanca, MA

Business Website: http://mdinabus.ma/

Year Founded: 2004

Number of Employees: 5001 to 10000

Upon conducting an interview with Mr. Houcine Amri , the information system manager of M'dina Bus, we managed to collect the maximum amount of information that is input related to the managerial style of the company as well as where their innovation is present. First, the interviewee presented briefly the company "M’dina bus is a Moroccan company which headquarters are located in Casablanca. The services that it provides are related to transportation of citizens that live within the Wilaya of Grand Casablanca. The company operates using 866 buses which network covers almost 1200 kilometers. The company has 4800 employees both men and women that work hard every day to fulfill the needs of customers. It took advantage of the market gap related to transportation that used to be present within the city of Casablanca in order to come up with an innovative idea that is: offer transportation services for customer at an affordable price accessible by the majority of Moroccans." (Houcine A.) Historically, the company started to operate within the market of Casablanca in 2004. In fact, they got their authorization from the government in order to offer their services within the city of Casablanca but also in some cities nearby. The company started then by an initial number of 400 buses that grew since then as a reaction to the increasing demand. In order to answer our main question which is related to the innovation proposed by this company, Mr. Amri stated that it is mainly related to the business model that they follow.

M'dina Bus